Anger as Suspicion of Corruption in Lakewood Comes to Light

Citizens to vote on hospital in November.

For Immediate Release —

On November 8, Issue 64 will give Lakewood residents an opportunity to vote against the ordinance that closed the city’s hospital. Outrage over the hospital’s loss is growing, as it becomes more apparent the closing could have been avoided if it weren’t for what many feel to be an incompetent or corrupt city government.

Here are just some of the things that are stoking voter suspicion and anger:

Revelations of unethical bid-steering, that gave The Cleveland Clinic an inside track to build a much smaller “Family Health Center” in place of the hospital, while blocking all competitive operators who could have kept the hospital open.

In a move that limits health care options and increases prices for Lakewood residents, Mayor Summers supported a restrictive covenant, keeping other health care operators out of the now empty Lakewood Hospital while the Clinic operates its “Family Health Center” across the street.

Ten years before the end of a lease, Mayor Summers released the Clinic of its obligation to operate the hospital, effectively torpedoing over one thousand jobs averaging $59,000 a year. What mayor would close a city’s largest employer? It defies rational explanation.

Why did Mayor Summers allow the Clinic to mismanage the hospital and strip it of profitable, life-saving services.

Most assumed that the closing of Lakewood Hospital had to do with national trend towards centralized health care. But time and investigation is proving that this is not the case. The city’s hospital has been closed by city officials, whose interest in pleasing the Clinic has for suspicious reason taken priority over the interests of the citizens they are pledged to represent.

As the vote to overturn the ordinance that closed the hospital looms in November’s election, anger in Lakewood continues to grow.